Mostly Musical Theatre

Updating to iOS 7 September 21, 2013

Make sure that you have your iPad or iPhone backed up — either through iCloud or preferably on your computer. This includes text messages and emails. Do not make any changes on your iPHone or iPad after backing up. This can not be overstressed. Make sure you have a backup. I usually do my backups through iTunes NOT through iCloud.

This is a good time to make sure you have all important notes and documents copied and pasted into Evernote before you update. Overall, its better than the built-in notes program, but it will also serve as a second backup just in case. YOU WILL LOSE any notes or documents that are not backed up before your update. Evernote is a great way to guarantee you have them no matter what.

Make sure that you have selected a wallpaper of your own and NOT one of the iPhone supplied wallpapers and have it on your iPhone or iPad before backing up — if you have not, ADD ONE NOW. Do not update with the standard Apple wallpaper.

Allow plenty of time to do the backup — it can range from 10 to 30 minutes and upto another hour to put photos, music, and videos back on.

Sit by your iPhone/iPad and watch the update — do not walk around the house, wander away or touch anything until it tells you that it is completely backed up. DO NOT do other things on your computer, or send or read email while the update is taking place. Keep a watchful eye out. You will see the iPad/iPhone verify the device…download the software…install the software…verify the device again…install additional firmware. The small bar on the pc/mac will move at a different speed than the one on your iPhone/iPad — watch the iPad. DO NOT DISCONNECT OR ALL IS LOST!!!!….eventually you will see a message that says “do not disconnect until you see the device reappear in your iTunes list at left” — it will totally reboot.

Don’t unplug anything or touch your iphone/iPad until it tells you that it has been updated and that the update has reinstalled your old files and has resynced everything. You might need to press SYNC on the bottom of your information page one more time to get everything to sync back.

All icons should be exactly where you left them, but they will look drastically different. If you like the new look, you are good to go. If not, you have to tweek from settings. The upgrade will put a dedicated FaceTime icon somewhere on one of your screens. Move that wherever you want after the upgrade. That should be the only icon change/addition.

Dig down into the iPad to change the settings you want. Start with these two websites and follow through step by step.

If you’ve upgraded to ios7 and are getting the typing lag problem switch off documents and data in the cloud…known glitch at present (the update turns it on by default even if you did not enable it) Settings -> iCloud -> Documents and Data (switch it OFF)

Some things to keep in mind: After your upgrade, your icons will look very different — you’ll quickly adapt to these.

After your upgrade, if you did not heed my warning and place your own wallpaper on your iPhone/iPad, you will be upgraded to the horrible looking 3-d “parallax” view wallpaper and effects. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Even if you have never put your own wallpaper on before, you should do so before upgrading unless you want to be faced with visual hell once you update.

If you did not back it up, it won’t be there after the upgrade. Seriously. If you didn’t back up notes, the new notes program will be empty. If you didn’t back up text messages, that will be empty after your update. BACKUP.

Here’s another great article on how to transfer data to your iPhone/iPad from different types of phones, using both iTunes and iCloud…